The assignees have performed a study to assess the way in which end users of photographic images perceive their use of those images, and what values they assign to the use of their images. One of the findings of this work is that audio data captured at the time of capture of a photographic image is perceived as having significant value to an end user. Such audio data encompasses not only catalogue narrative, for example narrative describing the time, place and date at which a photograph was taken, but also descriptive narrative, that is audio data describing the content of the image, for example “This is Lucy at her birthday party” or the like, and also context specific audio data such as ambient noise or noise provided by a subject of a photograph, for example in connection with a photograph of a baby, audio data recording the baby's crying. The recorded audio data can be of any type, similar to the types of audio data collected in connection with conventional prior art video sequences.
The assignees have recognized that as an intermediate step between still photograph images, without audio data, and full video sequences comprising video frames with accompanying real-time audio data with over-dubbing, there is an intermediate layer product, comprising still photograph images and associated with those still photograph images, sound bites, where the sound bites comprise audio data, in particular context specific audio data, also encompassing descriptive narrative and/or catalogue narrative audio data.
Capture of sound data at the same time as capture of image data is known in the prior art, in various forms extending back over thirty years. Photograph formats having a magnetic strip for sound recording are known in U.S. Pat. No. 3,439,598; U.S. Pat. No. 4,270,853; U.S. Pat. No. 4,905,029; U.S. Pat. No. 4,270,854; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,276,472.
Conventional photographic images, resulting from developed photographs printed onto paper or film, are displayed typically by means of a hand-held photograph album, being a book having pages onto which the photographs are attached. Other methods of display, for example slide projectors which display still images in sequence, are known.
There is a known photograph album available from Brookstone (HTTP://brookstone.com) which comprises a photograph album having pages, for attachment of flash film photographs in conventional manner, and a module positioned at the bottom of the pages, which allows a user to record up to ten audio sound bites, that is, ten individual sequences of recorded audio sound. However, the functionality of the Brookstone product is very limited in flexibility of association between images and sound bites.
Grouping of images with sound passages to form a linked group is known in WO 00/48388. Further, individual data storage devices capable of storing individual passages of sound are known from WO 00/03299.
However, the above prior art technologies are disparate and do not provide a unified system which is compact and easy to use for playback and manipulation of audio sounds captured at the same time as an image sound.
Specific implementations according to the present invention aim to provide a simple and easy to use method of and apparatus for presenting individual still images in conjunction with audio sound bites recorded at the same time as the still images, in a form suitable for general consumer use.